The Japanese firm behind Google Glass rival Telepathy One has raised $5m in Series A funding from early Facebook and Twitter investor Firsthand Technology Value Fund.

Now headquartered in California HQ, Telepathy has said it will use the cash to fund a number of key hires, including a range of engineers and developers, in order to speed up product development. The company’s CEO said the device will come to market in 2014, while the developer SDK should be ready in the coming months.

Key features of Telepathy One include live streaming of audio and video to friends, with the simultaneous ability to view media shared with you, as well as search and browsing functions currently live on Google Glass prototypes. Unlike Glass, Telepathy One also works for people who already wear glasses. The company says its primary goal is to ‘promote the development of bonds between people as if they had telepathic connections’.

A range of pretenders are popping up around the world, including GlassUP, which has nine days to reach its $150,000 target on Indiegogo, and Meta’s Space Glasses, that certainly look more like theyre made for space and offer more in the way of AR.